A good friend of mine sent me a podcast about the Towers of Silence in India. This is the name for the place in the middle of Mumbai where the Parsis leave their dead.
For those who don’t know, the Parsis were expatriates from Persia (now Iran) who were driven out when the Muslims took over. They were given a choice — convert to Islam or leave.
Many left.
As anyone who has watched the film Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie Mercury’s family were Parsis who were from Tanzania, part of the Persian diaspora. Others went to the Western shore of India, where they formed the Parsi community there.
The Parsis are Zorastrians. They believe in the eternal battle between Ahura Mazda (good) and Ahriman (evil). While they are free to choose either, Zoroaster encouraged them to make good choices, exemplified by good thoughts, good deeds, and good words.
Because Zorastrians believe that when a person dies, he or she becomes unclean, they don’t want his body to be in touch with and contaminate the elements of fire, earth, or water. So they place the bodies on elevated platforms that reach into the sky.
These are generally round platforms and with a pit in the center, where the bones are interred ceremonially once the vultures have cleaned them.
This is a natural process, which can be seen in nature, where, for example, vultures will pick the bones clean of dead carcasses.
In this way, vultures help to keep the earth clean, as dead bodies are potential sources of disease.
For about 4,000 years, the Zoroastrians have followed this custom.
However, as discussed in the podcast, because vultures have been dying, now the Parsi community is in desperate straits as they are no longer cleaning the bones of the dead, leading the bodies to stink up the area in central Mumbai and causing nearby residents to complain.
The problem? Modern medicine. A cheap drug, Diclofenac, was created in the 1970s to treat pain and arthritis in humans, but by the early 1990s, it was also being used as a vetrinary painkiller.
In India, when the vultures ate the flesh of dead people and cows, they were dying because they ingested this drug. Apparently, while their insides can take a lot of substances we’d consider poisonous, they can’t survive this synthetic drug. It’s toxic to them.
Now India’s Zoroastrian community is facing some real problems and the podcast discusses some possible ideas though there is a lack of any real solution as of yet.
However, one thing that became apparent to me while I was reading this — would the situation have been dealt with more expeditiously if vultures were not perceived as ugly and dirty?
If an animal is perceived to be noble (lions or eagles) or cute (pandas or baby seals) or relatable because of their human characteristics (wolves, dolpins and swans) then human beings put effort into saving them and their habitat.
When animals are ugly, however, such as hyenas, then less interest exists in preserving them and their habitat.
Yet in many cases, these ugly animals fulfill essential purposes.
In a similar vein, in India, the Untouchables, who disposed of the dead and took care of the trash, cleaning sewage, etc. — all ESSENTIAL occupations, were treated like pariahs.
In America, while we don’t make our trash collectors, etc., ring bells to warn us of their presence so we can avoid them, do we treat them like the essential workers that they are, or do we ostracize them?
It’s something to think about, anyway.
I am fighting stage IV cancer. If you can help with medical bills, I would really appreciate it. Or if you enjoy my writing and would like to buy me a cup of coffee, that’s great too. Maybe someday I can return the favor.
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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.
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